


Fishing in the Dark

by ProwlingThunder



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Contains Zero Fish, Crownsguard (FFXV), Dealing With Trauma, Ecosystems, Gen, Hunters (FFXV), Kingsglaive (FFXV), Lack of Fish, Melusine (FFXV), No Fish, Past Abuse, Potential Spoilers, Running with the Glaives, The Vesperpool (FFXV), World of Ruin (Final Fantasy), childhood crushes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:06:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28312071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProwlingThunder/pseuds/ProwlingThunder
Summary: There was a daemon near the Vesperpool decimating the basilisk flocks and chewing on people.
Kudos: 7
Collections: Waves of Wonder- Prompto Ocean Themed Zine 2020





	Fishing in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> For my Christmas gift to my readers, I present: my piece for the Waves of Wonder Prompto zine!  
> I was lucky enough to get my first choice, the Vesperpool!

There was a daemon near the Vesperpool decimating the basilisk flocks and chewing on people. Mostly Hunters so far, because basilisk farmers were few and far between. The Hunters hadn’t come home again. The attacks on the giant murder chickens hadn’t stopped. Aforementioned beasties _probably_ wouldn’t have mattered, except one basilisk leg could feed about ten people.

So, basically, doom chickens were their primary source of delicious dead things, and something had to be done. Prompto had only been half listening when they had been given the rundown, him and a team of Kingsglaives, but he thought it was something like that.

Despite the fact that the daemon had taken out many Hunters, nobody knew much about it. Gossip wasn’t actually a good basis for building a game plan, especially since those who’d likely seen it weren’t around anymore. The most anyone _knew_ was where it _could_ be. If he were Ignis, he could figure out what was true, prepare his team accordingly. But he wasn’t. Prompto figured he just needed to prepare for the worst possible outcome, whatever that was. 

He stole one of the camp’s collapsable tables for himself once they’d set up on Capitis Haven. None of the Glaives seemed to mind, and the Hunter had stolen a chair next to the radio so he could relay back their arrival on the banks of the Vesperpool. 

They all seemed to know each other. The only odd man out was himself.

Prompto was used to that feeling these days. He would join a team for a hunt today and a different team on a different hunt tomorrow. Always meeting new people, but they were never _his_ teammates, never the friends he already _knew_ how to fight with.

Not that he wasn’t always making _new_ friends! At the very least, the teams usually appreciated a guy who had a hi-potion or an elixir on hand, and every time he dropped a drink into the Armiger, it came out as _something useful._ He figured that was Noct’s way of looking out for them, a little, and so Prom dropped as much as he could in there. Maybe it was hoarding, a little bit, or maybe abusing his best friend’s magic, but Prompto didn’t think he would mind. Noctis had never minded when he bought a new gun--

“Is that a _bazooka?”_

Prompto blinked, turning violet eyes to the Hunter, staring at his table with open fascination. He looked familiar, and like he desperately wanted to touch, but was keeping his hands to himself. Which was good, and Prompto was grateful for it, because the closest thing to the young man was a mess of grenades and, _yeah,_ that wouldn’t be pretty in camp. “Yeah, an Alea model.” 

The hunter nodded, either in agreement or understanding, “And those are the Rapidus and Flagrum SMGs… A hundred rounds, right?”

As a rule, he didn’t talk to people about the way Noct’s magic wove through him into his gear, channeling his own innate magic into bullets and starshells. Ardyn had hinted it didn’t have anything to do with Noctis at all, but the less Prompto thought about Besithia and the production facility and his fuck-up breaking into Zegnautus Keep, the better off he felt about most things these days. The idea that _he_ could…

He shook his head, disrupting the thoughts before they could take real root. None of that mattered anymore. The guys hadn’t cared, had affirmed he was still Prompto. He and Noctis had promised to rip down the borders, and Prompto was going to hold him to that; they weren’t going to let something so ridiculous as birthplaces (or lack of birthplaces, in his case) ruin their friendship. They were going to teach people to be better. He was trying to do his part in that, too. As _just Prompto._ The guy with the guns, gadgets, and chocobo love.

“Yeah, but I got extra rounds. Just takes a while to reload them all in combat, is all.”

The Hunter smiled at him, a touch impish. It made him look a little bit younger, under the rough, uneven scruff on his face.

“I’ve never known you to run out of bullets, Prompto.”

Prompto blinked. He actually _hadn’t_ introduced himself earlier. None of them had this time, everyone too busy making sure they were ready to go _immediately_ as soon as they’d made camp, just in case. Nothing really said _we’re going to live_ like having a prepared place where dinner and a bedroll was waiting. Honestly, that was a necessary reassurance after so many people had fallen. Prompto kind of figured introductions would get covered after everyone had gone through their own preparations and they were discussing their battle plan. 

“Don’t ever plan to, but I’ve got some alternatives if I ever do. If all else fails I can get in close, but before I whip out the saw, I’m going to fill my enemy full of enough bolts to look like a mauled Sabertusk toy.” He shrugged, watching the younger man. A tiny cactuar charm dangled from his left ear, ringing familiar in his brain. _Huh._ “What about you? Got plans to use something for a pincushion?”

“Maybe,” he grinned slyly, reaching up to tug at his shoulder strap. An infantryman’s gun, Prompto guessed. That didn’t narrow it down a whole lot, he thought, something uncomfortable twisting in his chest. Guns were plentiful these days. A lot of their defenders were refugees from other countries, and guns were easier and safer to pick up. “Want to pull my trigger?” The Hunter added, pools of swamp-green watching him intensely. Where did he know him from?

“Movement to the north-west!”

“Thank fuck,” Prompto blurted, instantly relieved. Any excuse not to answer the _hopefully not deliberate innuendo_ was welcome, even if the excuse was _time to try not to die._ He turned away, his gear vanishing into a glitter of blue light, and heard the Hunter follow him outside into halogen lights. “What do we got?”

“Big,” the Kingsglaive muttered unhelpfully, peering through the darkness out at the lake. “About two clicks out, behind that thicket of mangroves there.”

Prompto brought his camera up, peering through the lense, snapping shots as he went full zoom. They wouldn’t be great photos, but that wasn’t the point; a documentation of what was here, proof that they _were_ here if it didn’t, success or failure. And they had the moon tonight. He knew it was full behind the clouds, with just enough silvery light breaking through to differentiate trees from lakewater from _something_ that glistened like frozen cave walls. He frowned, tracing the shapes as they curved and twisted through roots without any noticeable difficulty. They slipped out of the water near deeper waters, and he had the uncomfortable feeling they’d be fighting hip-high in crocodilian infested waters--

“The sahagin. They were all over that shore before…” If the basilisks were still alive, it stood to reason their only real native predator was probably surviving too. Even if they were only really predators to young chicks. But he didn’t see any of them, not the tell-tale not-logs or any snoozing septic-toothed monstrosities basking in the bend.

“Whatever it is probably drove them further up shore,” the Hunter mused quietly. “Anything big enough to prey on the flocks probably considers them just as tasty.”

“That’s not reassuring,” Prompto muttered, lowering his camera to eye the other man, who smiled back, unrepentant and too cheery for the circumstances.

“They also could have been eaten to extinction, further throwing the ecosystem into turmoil.”

The sharpshooter paused. “Okay. That’s _really_ not reassuring.”

“He does this sometimes,” one of the Glaives reassured him. Prompto twisted out of reach before they could touch him, immediately feeling guilty about it when he saw their expression drop.

“Sorry, I..”

“It’s fine,” the man shook his head. “Kid said you fought in the war? I get it.”

 _You really don’t,_ Prompto didn’t tell him. He forced an apologetic smile anyway, got an understanding one back. “We should try to hit it before it slips away again. What’s the plan?”

The Kingsglaive traded a look with his brothers and the Hunter, and his heart dropped when they all looked back at _him._ “You don’t have one?”

He shrugged. “I always got a plan. I just figured since you guys are a cohesive unit, you might have a preference already?” 

Headshakes all around. He glanced out at the thicket, thinking hard. Every squad had a pattern, a way of fighting, like a dance. All Prompto had to do was find the rhythm and he could slip right into it, but….

_“He wanted a soldier. One who was stronger and faster than the rest. But that’s not what he built, is it, Prompto my boy? Now, now, Noct hasn’t any hope at all unless you stop trailing behind.”_

“Alright,” he huffed, shaking his head, as if that alone could dislodge his nightmares, “Here’s what we’re doing then: I’m going first. You guys follow at about fifty feet or so--”

“We can warp,” one of the Glaives protested, and Prompto waved him down, motioning for them to _listen._ They would only get one shot to make a first strike, and they needed to do as much damage-and-assess as they could. He needed them to stick to the first part, because that was the only part of a plan that survived contact.

“Yeah, don’t remind me, I’m already jealous. Anyway, that’s important, since this is what I need you guys to do...” This time they were quiet as he laid out his idea, and the sound of his own voice itched at him. He had never been the ‘plan guy’. Even so, he left the haven hoping he wasn’t leading them all to the same fate as their predecessors. Iggy would never let him live it down, and Noct…

He’d be sad, Prompto thought, scanning violet eyes over the two-tone shapes as he slipped into the cluster of mangrove trees. It was quiet in here, doubly so with only small shafts of moonlight cutting through the boughs, bouncing off the faceted stones beneath the water--

_Not rocks!_

He snagged a root with one hand and curved the other in a full swing, lumen flare tumbling between two trees to the largest cluster of _other--_

Burning shrapnel and fire exploded just shy of a full firaga, but the _whump-woosh_ wasn’t enough to swallow the serpentine screams or the woman’s shriek. He heard roots breaking as he threw himself into a different gap, ducking and twisting until he came up straight again, Kingsglaive coming in with indigo bursts as he raised Death Penalty. 

It was a giant woman. Snakes for hair, Shiva-blue skin and _absolutely nothing protecting her modesty--_

Something huge, gray and full of teeth lunged at him.

He lobbed a lumen grenade forward even as he twisted, heard them snap closed behind him, but he was too busy shoving himself between two trees to look. The steady sound of glass cracking told him where to expect the Glaives, giving him loose direction. He hoped they were trying to pull their prey into less tight space. Ahead there was a clearing-- 

Something huge and heavy dropped down in front of him, throwing water. He brought up his arm to deflect some of it, backpedaling. The daemon.

Prompto raised his gun high and fired blind into the sky, a shooting star burning bright, casting a halo. The daemon screamed, enraged-- someone grabbed his arm and yanked, the tell-tale whine of a machine gun as it spit the first volley. Probably at the twisty-slithery-massive something now where Prompto had been.

“You okay?”

“I almost got squashed by a snake goddess! Why wouldn’t I be?” Prompto shot the Hunter an incredulous look. Then his brain finally recognized him. “You’re supposed to be in camp!”

“Hunters don’t stay in _camp.”_

“Talcott, we survive this, you and I are having words!”


End file.
